


Homesick

by mosylu



Series: How It Should Have Ended [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, exiled, i love this dynamic, these two sort of really get each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 12:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6855661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atlantis is getting a little old. Iris knows that Zoom is still out there, still a threat, but part of her wants to go back to Central City so bad she can almost taste it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homesick

“Honey, all I’m saying is that it may be time to look for a place of our own.”

Barry furrowed his brow at her over his sunglasses. He’d adapted to the Atlantis island style unexpectedly quickly, although true to his clotheshorse ways, his brightly patterned shirts were perfectly matched with his beach shorts and those were coordinated beautifully with his flip-flops. “My parents are happy to have us for as long as we like, you know.”

“Of course they are, but their house here isn’t the biggest, and it’s just getting kind of cramped. And while we’re on the subject, I think we should find jobs. What about applying to the Atlantis PD?”

He looked away.

“You don’t think we should,” she said.

He lifted one shoulder and let it fall.

“Bare - ”

“I know,” he said. “I know you’re used to a lot more activity than this. I know helping my folks out around the house - ” He hoisted the plastic grocery sack in his hand, the reason for their current expedition. “- isn’t quite enough to occupy you. I know you’re used to waking up every day with a purpose, because so am I. But an apartment? Jobs? It’s like saying we’ll never go back.”

Now she looked away.

“You do want to go back,” he said softly. “Don’t you? I mean - if you didn’t, I would understand. But _I_ want to. It’s home.”

Going back to Central City? To the place where her father had been murdered by metas? She’d recoiled from the thought when they first got here, sunk too deep in sudden grief and the shock of giving everything up to hide out from Zoom.

But it had been two months, and deep inside, she yearned for Central City, like yearning for sunlight or water. The shape of the buildings against the sky, the smell of the river (okay, most of the river; the stank down by the warehouse district could curl your eyebrows), the food trucks that were only barely regulated by the Health Department so every rushed street lunch was an adventure.

Her job; their house. The _sssshhhhhew_ of the monorail overhead. Their favorite park where she ran on Saturday mornings and he read on the grass, yelling encouragement every time she puffed by, cursing the physical fitness requirements. The coffee shop where she’d worked before entering the police academy. The ringing of the phones in the precinct, the endless piles of paperwork, the cluttered, sunlit warmth of Barry’s lab when she went up there to drop a file and snatch a kiss.

“I do want to go back,” she admitted, and his shoulders relaxed. “It’s home. It always will be. But right now, baby, it’s got Zoom, and I’m keeping you as far away from that maniac as I possibly can.”

Against all reason, his face lit. “But I was going to tell you about that!” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’ve kept in touch - just, low-key -” he assured her, “- very down-low - with a couple of the guys. And they say Zoom hasn’t been seen in nearly a week and a half.”

She swallowed her hope. “He can run at the speed of sound. I think he can keep people from seeing him.”

“Right, but also, meta activity has dropped off sharply. Almost to zero.” He beamed at her.

She shook her head. “Maybe they’re gearing up for something big.”

“Or maybe _he_ did something, like he said he would.”

Barry didn’t have to define the pronoun. _He_ was only ever one person, between them.

She took his phone, read the email, then handed it back. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just - I don’t know.”

“Look, when we get back to my parents’ house, we’ll check the internet. The newspapers. If they back this up - ”

“It still feels too risky. No, let’s take tomorrow and just have a look around, see what rents on a one-bedroom are like - ”

“Honey, everything’s a risk.”

“No,” she said sharply. “We came here because he’ll be after you, and I can’t lose you. Not you.”

His face went soft. His hand closed around hers, then brought it to his lips.

“You’re all I’ve got,” she whispered.

“I know,” he breathed out.

She sniffed hard and cleared her throat.  "If,“ she said. "If we get confirmation that he’s dead and gone to hell where he belongs, yeah, I’ll be the first one packing. But until then - Barry, we may be in exile, but I refuse to accept being in limbo, too.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Maybe it is time for us to get our own place."

She smiled at him, feeling her lips tremble. Maybe not jobs at the PD, she thought, now that there was hope Zoom might be gone. Maybe retail. Something they could leave easily. She could still make a mean cup of coffee. Always work for a barista, and now she’d be able to handle the late-night assholes.

They continued walking, quietly debating the amenities they could and couldn’t live without. When they tuned up the front walk, Iris did her usual quick scan of the front of the house and froze.

“Who’s that?” Barry said.

The slender, dark-haired white woman sitting on the front steps rose to her feet. She looked tired - exhausted. Also strangely familiar. Something about her build and the shape of her face, maybe. Nothing Iris could point to.

But it was a familiarity that made her hackles rise, made her slide her hand to where her gun should be. Barry, who knew that motion, stepped back, leaving her space to fight if she needed it.

“Iris?” the woman said. “Barry?”

“I think you have the wrong people,” Iris said firmly.

The woman met her eyes. “No, I don’t.”

Iris flexed her hands and shifted her stance. The woman registered it - of course she did; Iris wasn’t taking any pains to be subtle - but didn’t move into a responsive stance. She just stood there and said, “My name is Caitlin Snow. I’m from another Earth.”

Behind her, Barry twitched. She put her hand back to catch his, squeezing - _I know - yes -_ and let go.

“You’re a friend of Cisco’s,” she said. “I remember him saying your name.” For some reason, the context was a little fuzzy. Well, that whole day after her father’s death was a little fuzzy. But she remembered the warmth and the affection in the younger man’s voice when he’d said it. “Are they here?” she asked. “Cisco and - and other Barry?”

“No,” Caitlin Snow said, the single word like a boulder thudding to the ground.

“What about Zoom?” Barry blurted, stepping up next to her. “They were the ones who told us to go.”

“Zoom is dead.”

Iris went still. “How do you know?”

Caitlin’s eyes suddenly glowed blue. “Because I killed him.”

Suddenly Iris remembered the context of the name Caitlin Snow.

“Killer Frost,” she snarled, pushing Barry behind her again, looking around for a weapon. How? Had she somehow mastered stealth? Was she here to take revenge, or start taking over Zoom’s operations or -

The blue melted back into brown. “Not exactly,” Caitlin said. “Your Killer Frost is dead. Zoom killed her. I’m - ” She looked at her hands. “I’m still coming into my powers. But Zoom is dead, I promise you.”

“Anybody can say that,” Iris told her. “Anybody could say anything.”

Caitlin pulled a phone from her pocket and held it out. The design was strange - other-Earth style, Iris guessed. It had no reception, of course.

What it did have was a picture on the screen. Zoom, splayed out on a concrete floor, with a sizeable and very sharp icicle thrust through his chest.

Iris grabbed it and studied it closely, while Barry said, _“You took a picture?”_ His voice squeaked with astonished horror.

“It’s not like I’ve been sitting around staring at it for the past week,” Caitlin snapped. “But the Iris I know always double-checks her sources.”

“Smart woman,” Iris said.

“Naturally,” Barry said.

She gave him a quick smile and then went back to the picture. Zoom, this was actually Zoom. And from the looks of it, actually dead.

His mask was off, revealing a handsome man in his late thirties. Blond hair, blank, staring blue eyes. Water and blood puddled under the body, soaking into the concrete.

“His name was Hunter Zolomon. I’m told he’s somewhat famous here, under that name.”

Iris looked up. “Shoulda known,” she said. “Nobody’s that completely batshit without leaving a trail. Where is this?”

“The Saint Perez Mental Asylum. It’s where - ”

“- he was committed,” Iris finished. “Yeah, I know it. It’s been condemned ever since the explosion. You left him there to rot?”

“He didn’t deserve any better,” Caitlin said coldly.

Iris had to agree.

She handed the phone back, glancing at Barry. He nodded and pulled his own phone out, firing off a quick text to someone in Central City who could check the asylum for a body.

Caitlin watched the interchange, completely unsurprised.

“Well, thanks,” Iris said. “You came all this way to tell us we were safe, I appreciate that. Now you can go home with a clear conscience.”

“Actually, I can’t,” Caitlin said.

Barry looked up from his phone. “What happened?”

“The breaches. They’re closed.”

A wave of relief hit Iris. They were safe again. No monsters from other dimensions could spill through and wreak havoc. Just the homegrown ones, and those, they were getting a handle on. Especially if Snow’s story checked out.

Barry, of course, caught the other implication. “You’re stranded here,” he said.

She nodded.

He stepped around Iris and reached out as if to put a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t!” Iris and Caitlin both said it at the same time, a sharp snarl of sound. Caitlin actually jumped back.

Barry stared at her, wide-eyed.

“I told you I was still coming into my powers,” Caitlin said. “Sometimes I - I touch things and they freeze over. Sometimes things are just fine. I don’t know. I don’t dare touch anybody that I don’t intend to hurt. So - please. Don’t.”

He dropped his hand. “I wish we could help get you back home,” he said. “But Harrison Wells has been missing all this time, and he’s the only one I can think of who might know what to do.”

“He’s back on my Earth. On the other side of the breaches. No, it’s - ” She shook her head. “It’s actually better this way.

Iris found herself asking, "Don’t you want to go home?”

Caitlin gave her a quick glance, and Iris saw an echo of her own homesickness in their depths - but this was homesickness for a world that was further out of reach than Iris’s Central City was, even here in Atlantis.

Then she looked away. “I have a lot of atonement ahead of me.”

“Atonement?”

As if she hadn’t heard Barry, Caitlin continued, more briskly, “Even with Zoom dead, you have a serious metahuman problem in your Central City. I believe I can help.”

Iris stood watching her, wary. Killer Frost had been a stone crazy bitch and Iris wouldn’t have trusted her as far as she could throw her. But then, Reverb had been a narcissistic little shit, nothing like the sweet, open-hearted Cisco Ramon that she’d met. And even the Barry Allen from the other Earth hadn’t quite been her Barry.

She looked at him, her own Barry, soft-hearted but not soft-headed. He quirked his brows at her over his glasses, his silent, _Well?_ Which meant he’d taken Caitlin Snow’s measure and thought Iris should at least hear her out.

She pulled her keys out of her pocket. “Why don’t you come inside, Ms. Snow.”

FINIS


End file.
